Rhythm is gonna get you!

by Sarah Luna

After my wonderful start with Smooth, I quickly changed into my new Latin dress for the Rhythm part of the day. I had some uneasiness about this new dress…it was completely backless and very short. One side was covered in red stones. It was by far the sexiest thing I’d ever worn. I unraveled my French braid and retwisted it ponytail English braid for more movement.

The reason I hadn’t worn this dress all semester is that I’m not allowed to wear fancy clothes until my partner and I compete in Silver. He was completely new at the beginning of the semester, and I had told him that my goal for us was to compete in Silver by the end. He agreed and was amazingly enthusiastic about learning the seven dances and all of the crazy technique that goes into them.

He was the one who would beg me to stay after practice to go over steps. He was the one who would say: “No! One more run-through. It’s 10:30? I don’t care; I’ll stay up all night to finish my work. Saaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaraaaaaaaaaaaaaah, one more time.” In other words, he is wonderful. 🙂

By the time Columbia came around, we knew that we weren’t at a Silver level of dancing despite all of our practice. It was our last time dancing together though, so we decided to register for both Bronze and Silver and see what happened.

We flew through the first rounds of Bronze Cha Cha, Rumba, and Swing. We were lookin’ good and having fun. We ended up getting 6th place in Swing. For Silver rhythm, we got cut the first round. We were ok with that; it was what we expected.

I was starting to run out of steam at this point. I laid down and almost didn’t get up for the Fun Dances. Partner wouldn’t have that.

The next day…we competed in Bronze and Silver Latin. Rhythm had warmed us up. We were ready to put on a show. We danced our first round of Silver. Cha Cha/Rumba was tolerable. Samba/Jive…well, our samba was pretty funny, but we rocked the Jive. Our number was 397, and we weren’t expecting to see it on the screen.

We watched one of the announcers slowly type the callbacks on the screen. 377…387…402… We looked at each other with a “good job” and a high five. We made our goal even if we didn’t get called back.

Then the cursor backed up. We watched with unbelieving eyes as 397 came up on the screen. We had a callback for Cha Cha/Rumba. Neither of us could say anything more than incoherent omigod!!! what just happened?? callback? WE’RE SO AWESOME!